Colin Leslie Walk for Celiac Disease: Post Walk Recap (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1 - Recap of Colin Leslie Walk for Celiac Disease

Pamela's Gluten Free Products

Silver Level Sponsors:

Pamela's - Pamela's had a double table filled with giveaways.  Two-packs of their regular sized cookies, individually wrapped mini-cookies, sample sized mixes, and new for this year: Whenever Bars.  For those who haven't seen them, they are 1.4oz snack bars in Oat Chocolate Chip Coconut, Oat Cranberry Almond, Oat Raisin Walnut, and Oat Blueberry Lemon.  I have three of the four flavors but have only tried the Oat Chocolate Chip Coconut which was quite good.  All are made with GF oats and are both GF and DF.

Glow Gluten Free Cookies

Shoprite - Shoprite had a large booth in the back corner and were sampling some of their products, sharing space with a cook book author, and giving out reusable shopping bags filled with samples.  These included a healthy living magazine (Live Right produced by Shoprite), a guide on living with celiac disease produced with the NFCA, coupon books, Nature's Path WholeO's cereal and a bag of the new Bachman's GF pretzels. 

Glow - Glow makes four flavors of crisp gluten free cookies: Chocolate Chip, Snickerdoodle, Double Chocolate, and Ginger Snap.  These are produced in a dedicated GF/DF bakery.  All four were available for sample.

Kettle Cuisine Gluten Free Soups

Kettle Cuisine - Kettle Cuisine was sampling their Angus Beef Steak Chili and Tomato Soup with Garden Vegetables.  Since I can't really handle tomatoes I passed, but I did grab a coupon as I do really like their chicken noodle soup.

Soft'n Hearty -They were sampling their Easy Roll Mix which is naturally gluten, soy and dairy free. The mix itself is also egg free but they had made the rolls with egg.  I only eat a small amount of egg and decided to skip these.

Against the Grain - I don't recall seeing them there, and almost every product they make contains dairy so I've never actually tried them.  I just checked their website though and see that they now have two dairy free products as well.

GlutenOut / Agluten – they were selling their products (a line of Italian foods from Italy) but not sampling anything. From what I could see, most of their items contained dairy (ravioli, tiramisu, gnocchi, etc).

Bronze Level Sponsors:

Pure Gluten Free/Vegan Cookies and Snacks

Udi’s - Ah, my favorite GF/DF bread supplier!  I actually ended up skipping their table as I already consume their products (I use their GF/DF hamburger and hot dog buns and make my breakfast sandwiches out of their breads.  I also have their cinnamon raisin bread from time to time and their bagels.).  One quick warning - their cookies contain dairy.  I've previously reviewed a number of their products: Udi's Ancient Grain Breads, Udi's Hotdog Buns, and Udi's Cinnamon Raisin Bread.

Pure - their entire line is gluten free and vegan (and corn, soy and egg free as well!)  They had samples of their product line, the highlight of which was a raspberry thumbprint cookie.  They also have some snacks made from pea flour which were interesting.  They're only in two stores in NJ so far: Organico (495 North Franklin Turnpike, Ramsey, NJ 07446) and Taste of Dawn (192 Main Street, Butler, NJ 07405).

GFL Gluten Free/Dairy Free Pita

Food Should Taste Good - I don't remember seeing them there but Fairway was giving out samples.  They make a great line of GF chips in a dedicated GF factory.  Some of their chips contain dairy including the chocolate and three with 'cheddar' right in the name.  My favorite is their Sweet Potato chip.

GFL Foods – They were at last year's walk as well.  They sell a GF Pita that is really exceptional.  Unfortunately they are a bit expensive (according to their webstore $9 for six).  The only NJ store carrying them so far is DeLiteful Foods (4040 Quakerbridge Road, Lawrenceville, NJ 08619).

Mrs. Green’s Natural Market - This is a great small market in NY (10 locations) and CT (2 locations).  They don't have any NJ locations but some are right over the border.

Gluten Free Naked Nuggets



Delight Gluten Free Magazine - they were giving away free issues of their magazine and taking subscriptions.  I haven't gotten to the sample issue (Fall 2011) that they gave me yet, but I did read another sample issue earlier this year.  A lot of very modern recipes and great photos.


Naked Nuggets - These are essentially non-breaded chicken nuggets.  I've had them before (and sampled them again at the fair) and they are quite good.  I'm sure being unbreaded they are much healthier.  Maybe if I had kids and was trying to get them to eat better, I would look at these again.  For now however, this big kid wants his chicken nuggets breaded and deep fried!

El’s Kitchen - They were sampling their bagel chips and snack medley.  All of their products are gluten and dairy free (gfdf) and have a nice kick to them (a touch spicy!)  The snack medley is bagel chips, corn chips, pretzels, corn nuts, and potato chips.

Really Great Food Company Gluten Free Mixes

Really Great Food Company - they had a display of their mixes but weren't demo'ing anything.  They have a very wide variety of mixes (wider than any other company I've seen actually).  I've seen them at Corrado's in Wayne, NJ and according to their website they are available at Balance Health Foods (1239 Rt22E, Lebanon, NJ 08833) and The Sunflower Seed (38 Old Hwy 22, Clinton, NJ 08809).

Mary’s Gone Crackers - Mary's Gone Crackers was handing out samples of their chips, cookies, and 'twigs'.  All of their products are vegan and gluten free and due to the number of whole grains and seeds they use quite nutritious. However, again due to the whole grains and seeds they use their products are quite crunchy as well.

Snack Chicks' GF/DF Herb-An Chicks Snacks

Snack Chicks - these are baked chick peas in four flavors - Sweet (cinnamon sugar), Naked (simply salted), Hot (spicy), and Herb-an (garlic and herb).  They're healthy, crunchy and had good flavor - I just don't like chickpeas and couldn't really get over my bias.  If you like chickpeas or seasoned nuts I would highly recommend trying these.

Katz Gluten Free - I highly recommend their products if you can have egg.  They are made in a dedicated Gluten free, dairy free, and nut free facility.  I find that there is just too much egg in their products for me, but if you can have egg, then go for it.  They have a very diverse product line and are making a number of items that no one else is.  I'm seeing their products in more and more places including lots of independent shops as well as some Shoprites and Fairway.

Dream Desserts - this CT only bakery is making dessert bars that are unfortunately made with dairy ingredients.  If you can have dairy and are in CT, I would suggest you try them.  A friend of mine raved about them and they looked really good!

(Continued)

Colin Leslie Walk for Celiac Disease: Post Walk Recap (Part 3)